Motion in Pictures

[Darcy Grizzle]

I am not sure that I should put this in here or Photography Basics. Since I was working on my motion capturing, how did I do on this one? Again when I look at Pow Wow pictures on google, most of the drum pics have the drum sticks frozen in time, and I really wanted to show the drumming, as it is a huge part of the powwow's. Some tribes even bring their own drummers, like the outgoing Princess did, as they have a ceremony where her whole family from the youngest to the oldest elders, dance her out, and they brought their own drummers/singers and requested they drum & sing for her dance. I also left the water bottles as every powwow, they initiate more or less a young water boy and bless him. He is in charge of taking the dancers/drummers/singers water after each dance & he takes his charge very seriously. It is not unusual to see quite a few water bottles LOL.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Most of the scene is frozen, while most of the drum sticks show motion, so I think you succeeded in this. Have you played with various shutter speeds to change the blur of the drum sticks? There might be a magic number. I guess I would also listen to the beat to see if there was a pattern that allowed better results.

 

[JimFox]

Tripod + slower shutter speed = win


The slower the shutter speed the more motion that will be shown, but if you are handholding you will be limited as to how slow you can go.

What was the shutter speed on this shot?

 

[Darcy Grizzle]

Most of the scene is frozen, while most of the drum sticks show motion, so I think you succeeded in this. Have you played with various shutter speeds to change the blur of the drum sticks? There might be a magic number. I guess I would also listen to the beat to see if there was a pattern that allowed better results.

Yeah I did, some were so motion you couldn't see them, and others were frozen so this was the one that got closest to what I wanted.

 

[Darcy Grizzle]

Tripod + slower shutter speed = win


The slower the shutter speed the more motion that will be shown, but if you are handholding you will be limited as to how slow you can go.

What was the shutter speed on this shot?

1/20 second, ISO 100, F13, at 38mm with my 16-300 lens, and yes handholding. You have to ask permission to photograph the drummers, and any individual dancer. They have their own Powwow photographer....so really anything other than shooting the dancing from a viewer standpoint around the arena, the proper etiquette is to ask their permission first. I didn't think that once they granted me permission to photograph them drumming, that I should set up my tripod etc hahaha.

I wish I wouldn't have deleted the others, so I could show you all the info, but I am sure if the drumsticks disappeared altogether I was too slow, as if I was faster it would have frozen them. The f13 was due to it being so bright even in the shade of the easy up with some in the sun.